Hate crimes have spiked during this period with many expecting “the situation to get worse in the future.”

My colleague here at IC, Andy Tenido, experienced the violent and racist atmosphere at a Trump primary event in Albequerque, where he was assaulted by Trump supporters and security while filming undocumented-rights protesters.

As if we didn’t have enough to be depressed about, #Brexit, the rise of far right movements pretty well everywhere, passing 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, facing the reality of a Hillary Clinton presidency as the only sensible choice, the lesser evil that we can probably deal with – well here, now, riding this wave of our collective despair we have the election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States.

At dawn on November 9, 2016, Africans woke up to news of a United States president-elect, and it was not Hillary Clinton. Many expected Clinton, largely because in preceding weeks and months they got their share of around-the-clock propaganda from a host of pundits who had kept the media under siege with axiomatic pronouncements abridged as: Trump can’t win. Also, there were, in Africa, prophecies by egotistical preachers who feigned hearing from God about a Clinton win when in reality, the god they had heard from was a TV set mainstreaming oracles from elites to the populace. In the end none other than Donald Trump was left to emerge as the victor in what is yet to remain a bewildering stunner administered to millions of Americans, feminism sympathizers, and world leaders who misguidedly fancied contemplations of Clinton’s coronation.

Judging by past statements, South America’s socialist presidents look set to receive Donald Trump’s election with equanimity, arguing that power and politics in the United States is much deeper and more consolidated than any one government.

Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of Bolivia, said that since Obama’s presidency, he had been disappointed in his hopes for a more respectful US foreign policy.

The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own. ImportantCool does not endorse any candidate for president of the United States, though it’s safe to say we all deeply detest Trump on a personal level.

It gives me no pleasure to defend Hillary Clinton.

Like many of us, over years, nay, decades, of excessive exposure, I have become allergic to her.

I hate her voice. I hate her smug face. I hate her weasel words and lies. I hate her ever shifting kaleidoscope of public positions. To repurpose a line from the fictional Tracy Jordan of 30 Rock, she’s “like a chameleon, always a lizard”.

There has literally never been a better time to relentlessly insult whoever you please to as wide an audience as you please; it’s a veritable golden age, with one catch, they can probably hear you.

You know there was a time when a man could say whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted.

All he had to worry about then was who, if anyone (it was more than likely someone) would henceforth attempt to punish him for it. It’s possible someone would challenge him to a duel. Maybe a mob would casually set fire to him. Or perhaps the local constabulary would kidnap him, torture him to death, and sell his family into slavery. You know, the little things. Minor hiccups in an otherwise glorious age of freedom.

I used to be addicted to the challenge of political stand up comedy but I walked away to focus on activism. I suspect jokes are a good way to water down ideas until you’re just wasting time. Why stand on a stage sharing your thoughts with punters who will do nothing with those ideas when you can instead do real things with actual people? Its heartbreaking festival shows in the bullshit world of entertainment or its winning campaigns on an Earth where real people live: no choice at all when you think about it. I am part of Whistleblowers, Activists and Citizens Alliance (WACA), and we have gone a long way by doing exactly what we want to do. Meanwhile, political stand-up in Australia is essentially a pointless conversation the political class is having with itself and I found myself answering to people who considered me an idiot, what with my obvious desire to change things without asking middle-class people nicely first.